The Road of Fame
by Lilinoe
Summary: Tragedy strike the music industry, but the world moves on. Seven years after the heart break, the Espada, a band trying to make it big, find themselves in a very unique and interesting situation after a last minute performance. Is the man they met there really just a doctor or is there more to him than meets the eye? IchiShiro, Yaoi, AU, a little OOC, Etc...


**A/N: I know I shouldn't be starting another story when I seem to be neglecting my other stories but this idea wouldn't leave me alone and I think I've figured out something about my writing. I can focus on specific plots/stories at certain locations while listening to specific music. This story is what I mull over on my down time at work while listening to nu rock and dubstep. Currently I'm in love with Linkin Park's new album Living Things! XD**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach or the songs I use in this fic (I'm only going to post this disclaimer once because I feel they are extraneous and unneeded on this site.)**

**Warnings: Character death, Yaoi, M/M, Drama, Fluff?, OOC, AU,… Etc…**

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_Tragedy Strikes the Music Industry! _

_Plane Crash kills four members of the popular band Soul Society. _

_Kurosaki Ichigo (19), Soul Society's guitarist, is left to mourn the death of his brother lead vocalist Kaien Shiba (23), as well as his band-mates: keyboardist Kuchiki Rukia (21), drummer Abarai Renji (21) and bassist Hisagi Shuuhei (22). So far the cause of the crash is unknown and there are no known survivors._

To a fourteen year old Shirosaki the news was devastating. Their music had changed his life; hell he'd even go as far as to say it saved his life. It gave him the strength to face his personal demons and to rise and meet challenges head on. Their deaths made him feel like a hole was punched through his chest.

Over the following months he followed the news closely to find out any scrap of information on what had happened to his idols. It was found that faulty wiring caused one of the engines to fail. It was undetermined if anyone had tampered with the systems. All of the bodies were recovered from the crash site and identified through dental records and by the personal effects that had survived on the corpses.

The following year, on the anniversary of the crash, Ichigo released his first and only album as a solo artist in their memory and announced that he was leaving the music industry. His album _'Hollow' _was soul shattering. The lyrics were incredibly beautiful and the emotions behind them were heart breaking. The melodies were haunting and engrained themselves into the hearts of millions. And true to his word, Ichigo completely fell off the radar after topping the charts. Even the nosiest and most persistent members of the paparazzi could find no trace of the man.

That album has been Shirosaki's favorite since it's release almost seven years ago. Now he's in a band of his own called The Espada and they are trying to break into the industry.

Tonight they had managed to get a gig at a fairly small but well-known and popular bar that had a reputation of booking really talented performers. In fact there are some artists claiming that performing at The Shoten was what propelled them into stardom. So naturally rumors of a talent scout hanging around made getting a gig there increasingly difficult. It was only through sheer luck and incredible timing that The Espada got a time slot.

They had gone to a family restaurant after spending all day rehearsing and in the booth next to theirs was a man with light blonde hair, arguing loudly with someone over the phone. From what could be heard, it sounded like the band he had booked for tomorrow evening was canceling at the last minute, leaving him hanging without a replacement. When he hung up, he was grumbling to himself about finding a suitable band to fill in, they went into their 'serious work mode.'

After about twenty minutes of discussion he gave them the address to where they would be performing the next evening. The man had written the address in a messy scribble that the band could barely decipher. They were ecstatic to have a gig, even if it was on such short notice, and were absolutely floored when it turned out to be the address to The Shoten.

If everything went well, this could be their first major step on the road to fame.

**Shiro's POV:**

The enthusiastic cheers of the crowd rang in our ears as the band and I started our final number of the night. It was one of my favorite songs by Soul Society. The gentle piano intro gave way to the drums and guitars as the tempo built, and likewise the vocals start off fairly subdued then build up to soaring heights.

Into the night

Desperate and broken

The sound of a fight

Father has spoken.

We were the kings and queens of promise

We were the victims of ourselves

Maybe the children of a lesser god

Between heaven and hell, Heaven and hell.

Into your eyes

Hopeless and taken

We stole our new lives

Through blood and pain

In defense of our dreams

In defense of our dreams

We were the kings and queens of promise

We were the victims of ourselves

Maybe the children of a lesser god

Between heaven and hell, Heaven and hell.

The age of man is over

The darkness comes at dawn

These lessons that we've learned here

Have only just begun

We were the kings and queens of promise

We were the victims of ourselves

Maybe the children of a lesser god

Between heaven and hell.

We are the kings

We are the queens

We are the kings

We are the queens

As the hum of the last note faded, the crowd went nuts, cheers and applause echoed all around us. We gratefully took our bows, stashed our gear backstage, and made our way to the bar for celebratory drinks. We ordered a round of shots for a quick toast to a job well done.

Before we could order our next round of drinks, a handsome stranger approached us. He was fairly tall, around 6'1" or so. In the dim lighting of the bar his hair, which reached about midway down his back and was tied in a loose ponytail at his nape, had a copper sheen like a shiny new penny. His dark eyes were serious but warm, and even a little mysterious. He wore black slacks and a white button down shirt with a couple of the top buttons undone, like he just got off work.

"Good job on the Soul Society covers. I haven't heard anyone do them justice in a long time. Your original songs were really good too. I wish you had played more of them." His voice was a smooth baritone, which was very pleasant on the ears, and his compliment on top of the still lingering buzz of performing left me feeling oddly giddy.

Plus he liked our songs. Granted that we only performed a couple of our own songs; because of the short notice we had played what we knew best, which happened to be several covers for Soul Society songs. He waved over the bartender and ordered a round of drinks.

We were chatting about music, our band and ambitions. He mostly kept us as the topic of discussion; it was almost like an interview but much less formal and he was easy to talk to. Soon I found myself wondering if this man was the talent scout rumored to hang around The Shoten. His next question pretty much confirmed my hunch in my mind.

"Are you signed onto a label?" We answered in the negative. "I may be able to help you."

He pulled a card out of his pocket and wrote something on the back. Before he handed it to me he told us two things. "One, I an not a talent scout and I am not affiliated with the music industry. Two, I am not promising that your dreams will come true or that the world will be served to you on a silver platter, but I can give you a foot in the door. Don't waste this opportunity, it won't come again."

With that he handed over the card. On it printed neatly was the name G. Ichimaru along with a phone number. "Give him a call tomorrow and tell him Ichigo gave you his number. I hope things will work out for you all." He gave us a small smile and excused himself.

I watched him leave and in the slightly brighter light be the entrance I noticed that his hair was not the copper hue I had first thought but was actually a scorching fiery orange. I looked back at the card in my hand, the front of which was in fact a business card. Emblazed in red and black was the insignia for Karakura General Hospital, the name read Dr. I. Kurosaki M.D. and had his office phone number and e-mail.

"Dr. Ichigo Kurosaki." I mumbled to myself. My eyes widened in realization. "Holy shit. I think we were just discovered by Kurosaki Ichigo."

My band-mates stared at me a little disbelieving. Grimmjow, our guitarist, plucked the card out of my numb fingers. He let out a low whistle. "Well damn, I think he may be right."

"If I recall correctly, before he left the music industry and disappeared Ichigo's manager was Gin Ichimaru." That was Szayel, our synth player and all around tech guru. And with his near encyclopedic knowledge of all sorts of trivia I wasn't going to be the one to doubt him any time soon.

We all stared at the card like we expected it to jump out of Grimm's hand and tap dance across the bar. Nnoitra, our drummer was the one to break the silence that had settled over our group with a cackle.

"Ha! No one is going to believe this. They'll think we made it up to get attention."

"Of course. Trash tends to believe what seems most plausible. And that is much more plausible than an icon who vanished seven years ago suddenly reappearing to discover a new band out of the blue." Ulquiorra, keyboardist and violinist, responded dryly.

Stark our bassist and Hallibel our other guitarist, who had remained silent for most of the night, were casually sipping their drinks.

"I just hope this isn't some sort of hoax." Hal finally spoke up.

"Guess we'll find out tomorrow." Stark replied in a lazy drawl.

I sighed. "Yo barkeep." I called to the large man behind the counter. "One more round of shots." I ordered, only this was to sooth our slightly frazzled nerves.

We each knocked back the shot as soon as it was placed in front of us. "Here's to hoping that tomorrow goes well." Grimm mumbled before downing his shot. I'm sure we were all thinking the same thing.

Later that night I was so excited I could hardly get to sleep.

The next day, around noon, we called the number and were surprised when it was answered after the first ring. Not to mention how he answered with, "Ah, you must be The Espada. My name is Ichimaru Gin, Ichi told me to expect your call."

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**A/N: **

**The song is Kings and Queens by 30 Seconds to Mars.**

**I know this started off a bit depressing but the whole story wont be that way. It was just to give a bit of back story to everything… and I didn't want to have to explain things later… ^^'**

**The next chapter will be set about one year after that fateful phone call. **


End file.
